Turkish airliner crashes at Schiphol

[soddim]

I am not suggesting that aircrew in any airline are immune from human error but there are some airlines who don't seem to care what abilities they employ. Those are the ones I will not fly.

[BOAC]

To pick up on Soddim's post. the thing that I cannot understand with this crew is that the most important lesson a pilot very rapidly learns in mil aviation is to look after yourself, something that is mostly missing in purely civvy trained pilots, unless they have been exposed to single-pilot commercial work. Operating single pilot in a fast machine teaches you that no-one else is going to wake you up, nudge you, shuffle uneasily in their seat or clear their throat when things go awry. With all the 'fast-jet' time supposedly claimed by this crew I am just amazed that there appeared to be no self-preservation instinct, and this is an interesting one for the shrinks.

[Nicholas49]

If I was obliged to fly with someone who placed my life in the hands of a system without being prepared to handle a failure of that system, I would go completely mad. He simply shouldn't have been in that seat.

Rainboe, that's a very interesting point. But how are you or I supposed to know whether the person in the LHS of our flight fits that description? We can't really ask how much experience he has when we board the aircraft.

[ALK A343]

Nicholas49,
You have to trust the system, and that is exactly where the problem is. The whole aviation system of check and balance is based on ethics.
It was designed in a day and age where aviation itself was in its infancy and there were only a handful of operators, run by people other than accountants.
The idea was to have rules and regulations as the minimum acceptable standard not the benchmark.
Unfortunately aviation had to expand and now you have more and more people wanting to fly ever so cheaper.
The outcome of all this is that way too many people slip through the system all over the world. Probably more in some regions than others.
How are you to know whether the man or woman upfront is the one that slipped through? It is the luck of the draw. You just have to blindly trust an inadequate system.
I do not think that people who buy a Continental Airlines ticket would ever imagine being flown around by a underpaid, fatigued not properly trained crew.
Should people who simply cannot fly the plane like in Buffalo and Amsterdam carry passengers? Certainly not. I agree with rainboe on this. But how do you fix the system?

[Nicholas49]

Indeed, but at the end of the day the most senior pilot on that aircraft was a line training captain. Someone who, I think it is fair to assume, would be even more eagle-eyed and less likely to let such a catastrophic situation develop. Now I do not know what the requirements are to be an LTC at Turkish, but it is a fact that on this thread a substantial number of professional pilots have expressed their utter disbelief that this accident occurred. So, what to do?

[ALK A343]

The problem is not only the ability of the Line Training Captain. He is just the last link in the system.
Do you think line training flights are as safe as flights operated by a normal fully qualified crew? I would say no. It is that simple. A lot of people would not voluntarily board a line training flight.
So what do you do? You put in a system where you have a safety pilot and he or she is there for a reason. It is their responsibility to increase the alertness within the crew, since the line training captain cannot catch every little thing that goes wrong.
Lets assume the trainee can be forgiven for not monitoring the FMA and basic parameters like airspeed, should he or she even be given line training in that case? Probably not.
Then lets assume the line training captain gets too busy with other things going on to monitor those vital parameters, which ideally should not happen. What did the safety pilot do? Why was nothing said about airspeed? safety pilot has really nothing else to do but monitor the other two. There is so much more than simply the line training captain.

[MU3001A]

What did the safety pilot do? Why was nothing said about airspeed? safety pilot has really nothing else to do but monitor the other two.

I'm not familiar with the ergonomics of the 737NG cockpit as it relates to the jump seat. But the safety pilot may not have been in a position to make a useful contribution under the particular circumstances of the accident flight. To get any useful information from a speed tape you have to be able to read the numbers, which he may not have been able to do from his perch further back in the cockpit. A round dial gauge with a needle and speed bug would perhaps have afforded the safety pilot more of an opportunity to recognize and alert the crew to a slow speed situation.

[Pilot Pete]

Do you think line training flights are as safe as flights operated by a normal fully qualified crew? I would say no. It is that simple. A lot of people would not voluntarily board a line training flight.

On what basis do you say they are not as safe? Just because this one turned out not to be? There are plenty of counter arguments, such as;

1. LTCs are picked for their well above average ability and knowledge. In my airline they are all within the top 10% (from the Training Manager) they show a CONSISTENTLY higher score than the average line captain in checks.

2. Due to the fact that they are training, they tend to show a greater level of monitoring of the trainees flying and are usually much more ready to take control (purely because the average line captain only takes control once in a very long while, whereas the trainer will take control much more often).

3. They have experienced much worse handling from the PF than the average line captain and have recovered the situation much more often (through necessity).

Your point about people not boarding if they knew it was a training flight is true. BUT, they would not board out of ignorance of what that actually means. Equally, if the captain told them it was his first day in command after qualifying I bet many would also want to get off. The fact is the regulator sets the hurdles which the 'trainee' must negotiate before being allowed anywhere near a flight deck with passengers and the airlines' training department ensures regulations are met. The bar has to be set somewhere, so some will have just got over it and others will have cleared it by a country mile.

So what do you do? You put in a system where you have a safety pilot and he or she is there for a reason. It is their responsibility to increase the alertness within the crew, since the line training captain cannot catch every little thing that goes wrong.

The safety pilot is there because the regulations require them to be there. They have NO training role. They are there for the first few line training sectors just incase the trainee can't hack it and has to be 'relieved'. Simple as. However, a sensible line training captain will brief them and use them as an extra pair of eyes/ ears and encourage them to speak up should safety look like being compromised. They are not there to 'catch' every little thing that goes wrong. How would they know if the training captain had missed some 'little thing'?

Lets assume the trainee can be forgiven for not monitoring the FMA and basic parameters like airspeed, should he or she even be given line training in that case? Probably not.

They wouldn't be. Do you have the slightest idea about the training that must be completed before line training? No, thought not.

In this particular incident it still seems amazing that an LTC on final approach could not monitor airspeed. It equally seems amazing that a safety pilot would not say anything. I await the report with regards these points.

I'm not familiar with the ergonomics of the 737NG cockpit as it relates to the jump seat. But the safety pilot may not have been in a position to make a useful contribution under the particular circumstances of the accident flight. To get any useful information from a speed tape you have to be able to read the numbers, which he may not have been able to do from his perch further back in the cockpit.

Incorrect, THEY (remember there are two) can easily be seen from the jumpseat.

A round dial gauge with a needle and speed bug would perhaps have afforded the safety pilot more of an opportunity to recognize and alert the crew to a slow speed situation.

Makes no difference, as the dials on a Classic are as easy to see from the jumpseat. It comes down to alertness.

PP

[Oakape]

Pilot Pete,

Generally your comments are quite accurate & well thought out. However, the one below needs expanding upon -

1. LTCs are picked for their well above average ability and knowledge. In my airline they are all within the top 10% (from the Training Manager) they show a CONSISTENTLY higher score than the average line captain in checks.

If this really is the case in your airline, I would stay there no matter what!

In my time I have come across many trainning captains/TRI's who leave more than a little to be desired when it came to knowledge, ability & even basic flying skills. Their abiltiy to teach was also in question in many cases.

The fact is that management can only chose from the pilots who apply, & a lot of the pilots in the top 10% of an airline chose not to apply for various reasons.

Management in some airlines may take what we would consider to be the best from those who apply, but it has also been my experience that it is not so simple as it would seem & the management personnel tasked with the selection often have a different idea of who is the best than perhaps you or I would.

[captplaystation]

Oakape,
Agree completely with your summary, I like Pilot Pete's world, but it is not the one in which most airlines dwell, where indeed the "parameters" most important to management when identifying the "chosen few" are not always what we would wish.
To add to the above, how about an airline where it was mentioned on new Capt's contracts that they agreed to be appointed as LTC within a specified time-scale assuming they "met the standard"
Urban myth ? maybe, maybe not.

Or another one, that appointed newly entered Capts as LTC as soon as they were in the door without even asking whether the individual wanted the "privilege", no extra pay offered of course.

Another factor to be considered is that in some airlines LTC's are always flown to the max, 100hrs/month on and on until the 900 is achieved. For many, their flying is exclusively on line training/line checks, so little opportunity for an easy day in the office. Some airlines with an "understanding" regulator have even been known to then use these burnt out souls to line-check for the next couple of months until they are back in hours and somehow get away with not counting it as flying hours , depends how "flexible" the regulator is. So, the guys most in need of being sharp and monitoring closely are often the most knackered of all.

[Clandestino]

It was not Boeing, it was EASA, the article is here.

Originally Posted by European Aviation Safety Agency

The agency is recommending that flight crews, whether operating in automated or manual flight modes, "carefully monitor" primary flight instruments including airspeed and attitude, for aircraft performance and the flight mode annunciation for autoflight modes.

Words fail me.

[vested interest]

I did read the first 110 pages here - gave up sometime in April, calls for the CVR becoming too repetative. I can see since then, nothing's changed.

Anyone have any ideas when they might be released, or for that matter, the final report?

[Dutch Bru]

TOM stall connection

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...9%20G-THOF.pdf

It has been mentioned in the other thread (entitled "TOM stall ?"), there are strong parallels between this serious incident and the accident with Turkish this year: unintended decrease below Vref and stall during go around, following unobserved disconnection of AT during approach. TOM was more lucky than Turkish.

[captplaystation]

Of course the "bean-counters " love to see the thrust levers at idle until 500' (visual) or 1000' (IMC) and (let's be honest) it's one of the few chances we have to have a bit of fun/professional pride to leave the power at idle until the last moment. . . . . however,if we wound the clock back 40 yrs or more to when the first accidents started in commercial jet ops and demanded that EVERY approach was stable with Gear Down in landing config @10 miles , none of this would have happened would it ? Boring ? Oh Yes. . . . Thirsty ? Yes, a little

Safe ?. . . . I think so,but it won't ever be re-adopted so forget it

BEANIES RULE, STUFF SAFETY ! ! !

[alf5071h]

TOM stall connection, Re #2433.

How do we teach pilots to monitor?
A presentation of relevance from RAeS Lecture 21 May - “What Pilots Really See - Eye Tracking for Simulator Debrief” – audio file only. The presentation was given by a TOM training Capt and relates to both the TOM and THY AMS incidents.
Note the number of previous incidents referred to and the quote from James Reason at the same conference that “events and incidents repeat themselves”.
The presentation should be essential listening for all pilots as part of an error management course and for all training departments.

[gengis]

1. LTCs are picked for their well above average ability and knowledge. In my airline they are all within the top 10% (from the Training Manager) they show a CONSISTENTLY higher score than the average line captain in checks.

Pilot Pete: This should be the case universally, but the unfortunate truth is that it is not so in every airline. In some companies that i have been with, one applied for Instructor positions if you were interested in it, rather than being "picked" or "appointed" by Training Dept based on suitability. In my opinion this sometimes (often) resulted in ambitious (but usually unsuitable) people getting the position, while there were many others who could have done the job well who never even applied because they just wanted to fly the line. Case in point - China Airlines (Taiwan). The requirement to apply for an instructor position was 100 hours PIC!!!! I kid you not - so you ended up with guys who had 300 hours out of the flying school then ended up in the right seat of an airliner, sat there for 8 years or so (getting through the system by memorising their way through scripted PCs & PTs <Base Checks & Recurrent training sessions> in which they knew everything & every "emergency" that was going to happen before hand... but never really learning to aviate) and then finally making a command. And a little over 1 month after sitting in the left seat some of these guys would, having clocked their 100 hours PIC, apply for an instructor position and end up doing "training"? This is a fact.

I do not know if Turkish has a similar "system" of instructor selection. But i would certainly be very cautious & hesitant about making the assumption that all LTCs are from the cream-of-the-crop within the "top 10%".

So in a perfect world where all regulators with half a sense of reality would have had something serious to say about such things, you would be right. Sadly, this is not the case.

[cwatters]

Humpmedumpme - I believe Boeing said "reminds" rather than "recommends"...

Boeing issues memo on 737 jets after Amsterdam crash - CNN.com

Boeing reminds all operators to make sure flight crews pay close attention to all primary flight controls during critical stages of a flight," Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx told CNN on Thursday.

[hetfield]

According to the data recorded by the cockpit voice recorder several aural landing configuration warnings
sounded (e.g. change landing gear configuration, flaps not selected) when the aircraft was already in
Dutch airspace. This warning is to alert the crew that the configuration should be verified to the stage of
the flight, in this case the landing. The first time the warning sounded was when the aircraft was still at high altitude above Flevoland. Later, during the approach the aural warnings again sounded for several
times. The warnings sounded because the computer systems receive their data from the left radio
altimeter, amongst others, which erroneously transmitted that the aircraft was near the ground. With the
aircraft still above Flevoland there was no reason to select the landing configuration and when the aural
warnings sounded during the approach, the landing configuration was completely according to the stage of
the flight at that time.

http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/docs/ra...imenary_EN.pdf

Do not know if this has already been discussed here.
So, in the very early stage of the approach there were some hints that something is wrong.

[Graybeard]

New News, Thanks

Nearly everybody posting on this thread had jumped to the conclusion that the #1 Radio Altimeter had begun indicating -8 feet only after they descended below 2000 feet on the approach. This was indeed implied from info received early on.

It has been my experience that signal leakage shows up and gives a false low altitude indication only when the aircraft is at higher altitudes with weak ground return signal. Often, the radio will "cure" itself and begin working again at low altitude, say below 300 feet.

Did they cross Flevoland about 30 minutes prior to landing, and would this have been the beginning of the un-overwritten recording?

GB

[punkalouver]

Here is how it is supposed to be done.

"A09W0160: The WestJet Boeing 737-700, registration C-FWAQ, operating as flight 229, was on the approach to runway 16 at Calgary in VMC conditions. The first officer was the pilot flying (PF) and through 1000 feet he disengaged the autopilot to hand fly the approach. His left hand was on the thrust levers as required by WestJet SOPs and at approximately 150 feet above ground he felt the thrust levers retarding to the idle position. The airspeed was observed to be slightly below the target airspeed of 133 knots and the Flight Mode Annunciator (FMA) was commanding RETARD on the N1 display. The PF disengaged the autothrottle and applied additional thrust to correct the low energy state, and the aircrft landed without further incident. Flight data was downloaded from the aircraft by the operator and Boeing was asked to provide assistance in reviewing the data. The operator provided the following information to the TSB after the data review: 1. The #1 RAD ALT indicated -6 feet at approximately 147feet AGL. The #2 RAD ALT indicated between 88feet-136feet at this time. 2. The autothrottle commanded RETARD as displayed on the FMC at approximately 94feet AGL. A reduction in Thrust Lever Angle is noted at approximately 77feet AGL. For approaches flown in VNAV or V/S, the A/T will retard the throttles at 27 feet RA. On all 737s, the autothrottle logic uses left radio altimeter data if left radio altitude is being displayed, regardless of the autopilot selected. On the 737NG, if the left RA failure flag is displayed, the autothrottle will use the right RA data. No failures of the RAD ALT system were recorded in the FDR data. It appears that the #1 RAD ALT displayed erroneous indications which was not recognized as a system failure. The RA failure flag did not display which would have enabled the autothrottle system to default to RAD ALT #2. The autothrottle continued to respond to the incorrect data provided from RAD ALT #1 and initiated a thrust RETARD command. The #1 RAD ALT was removed from the aircraft and sent to the vendor for teardown and investigation."